Jeremy Hunt says he will use some of the proceeds to ‘campaign for causes I believe in when I eventually leave frontline politics’.
Photograph: Steve Back/Barcroft Images

The health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, is set to become £14.5m richer after Hotcourses, the educational listings company he co-founded in 1990, was sold to an Australian firm.

Hotcourses is being bought for £30.1m by IDP Education, a Melbourne-based student placement company that co-owns the popular IELTS English language proficiency test, IDP said in a statement.

Companies House listings for Hotcourses shows it is 48% owned by Hunt, who set it up with his childhood friend Mike Elms, who is still a director. Hunt stepped down as a director in 2009, with his shares held in a blind trust since then.

Hunt said he hoped to use his windfall to “campaign for causes I believe in” once he leaves politics.

Hunt, who has previously collected significant dividends from the company, will be in line for a payout of just under £14.5m, making him potentially the richest member of Theresa May’s cabinet.

Hotcourses puts together databases of places to study, and has a contract with the British Council to run the Education UK website, which offers information to overseas students seeking to take courses in Britain.

In a statement, Hunt said: “I am incredibly proud to have set up a successful business, even prouder of the current Hotcourses team who have taken it from strength to strength, and intend to use a significant proportion of the proceeds to campaign for causes I believe in when I eventually leave frontline politics.”

Hotcourses runs education search websites includingWhatuni, Postgraduate Search, the Complete University Guide, as well as sites under its own name.

Announcing the sale, IDP said Hotcourses had 2 million registered users and received 66m annual website visits. The company’s last accounts show it had an operating profit of just over £2.5m on a turnover of £10.6m.

Hunt has said previously that the success of Hotcourses came only after he and Elms had pursued a string of failed ventures, including a scheme to export marmalade to Japan, and building children’s playgrounds.

On his website, Hunt told his constituents in South West Surrey that he understood the hardship of starting up a new business: “A lot of people who start their own business do so because they think it’s a good way to make a lot of money, but when you start it becomes simply a matter of survival. It’s a daily struggle, which is why small business people tend to be very down to earth and practical,” he said.

Cabinet wealth

The sale of Hotcourses will probably make Jeremy Hunt the richest member of Theresa May’s cabinet. The “probably” must be stressed however, because estimations of private wealth are generally little more than educated guesses. Hunt’s windfall is an exception, as the sale price of Hotcourses – £30.1m – and the 48% stake he owns are matters of public record.

As such, this list of Hunt’s fellow wealthy cabinet members should be taken as an approximation.

1 Jeremy Hunt

The health secretary has not controlled Hotcourses since 2009, and would probably have preferred that news of the sale did not come amid a winter crisis for the NHS. Hunt set up the company with his childhood friend, Mike Elms, in 1990. It makes money from websites giving databases of places to study, and has a contract with the British Council to run the Education UK website, which offers information to overseas students. Hunt has previously enjoyed dividends from the company, including £972,538 received in 2015.

2 Philip Hammond

The chancellor’s wealth is far less well documented, but is generally reported to be somewhere around £8m, a sum acquired mainly from Hammond’s varied and energetic business career before parliament.

An exhaustive Financial Times profile of the chancellor lists some of his endeavours which did less well, including a scheme to sell UK trips to Iranians – the 1979 overthrow of the Shah put paid to that – and a company making cardiac equipment, which he sold.

Most successful was Castlemead, a housebuilding company that expanded into constructing doctors’ surgeries. In 2007, when Hammond was a shadow minister, the company paid him and his wife more than £1.7m in dividends.

When he entered government in 2010, Hammond’s holding was placed in a trust that has a controlling interest in Castlemead.